Margaret

The guests started to arrive around eight o'clock. Margaret had been waiting for this day for several weeks and her finest dinnerware was laid out at the table and the house spotless. She opened the door to the first guests who she knew from one of her jobs as a nanny, a husband and wife. She took their coats and sat them down next to the fire with a glass of champagne each.

Next some old classmates from university arrived, then her son Richard.
Once everyone was introduced to each other, conversation was easy and laughter coursed throughout the house.

Dinner was roasted chicken with carrots and peas from the garden, followed by a dessert of trifle and black coffee.

While the others were talking amongst themselves, Margaret began to clear the table. In the kitchen she looked out the window into the garden. It was a lovely clear night and some insects could be heard chirping contentedly. Then the lights went dim in the house and the scene beyond the window could no longer be seen. Instead a scene appeared of a great fire consuming a school building, pupils were screaming and running about wildly, flashing red lights from an approaching fire engine could be seen. Then the scene disappeared as quickly as it had come, the house lighting back to normal.

Eyes wide and breathing heavily with shock, Margaret headed back to the dining room to check on the guests. Feigning a smile, she took some more empty dishes and glanced around the room. Strangely, there was no sign of her university friends. She gave an enquiring glance to Richard and asked where they had gone. He
frowned a little and sighed.

'Mum, your friends were killed in the university campus fire in 1976, what are you talking about?'
Margaret paused to process this information and then chuckled aloud.
'Silly me, I still remember that day clearly. I was late for class and arrived to find the whole campus ablaze, I was the only one to survive'

She took a load of plates back to the kitchen. Returning to the dining room, she stopped in her tracks. The husband was lifting a chair above his head, swinging it violently down against the table with a crack. Splinters and dishes were strewn about the room. He took a snapped off leg from the chair and stabbed his wife in the stomach. She let out a scream of agony and then slid down her chair and onto the floor.

Margaret covered her face, holding back a scream of terror. When she removed her hands, the carnage was gone. Her son was sitting alone at the table, watching his mother with sympathetic eyes.
'Harry and Wendy...' started Margaret

'Harry murdered Wendy and then hung himself with remorse' whispered Richard.
Margaret began to sob. He tears fell steadily down her ageing face. She shuffled towards Richard and threw out her arms to hug him. He returned the gesture and they stood in a calming embrace for some time.

Margaret pulled away to take a look at her son's handsome face, but she didn't see Richard, she saw a masked man with a syringe. The man plunged the syringe painfully into Margaret's arm. She tried to back away from him, but found herself restrained. Bright lights made it hard to discern anything but the man who had now stepped away.

Now Margaret felt a soothing flow of calmness travel through her veins. She began to recognise the hospital ward where she had been kept for the last fifteen years. She twitched involuntarily in her arms and legs, but was strapped uncomfortably to the bed.

Her thoughts were clear, so she lay motionless for a while. Several hours later she realised that the guests would be arriving soon, she'd better clean the house.